


All I need of Hell and Heaven

by UMsArchive (orphan_account)



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, M/M, Other, a better Sebastian, still deciding whether I want Sizzy here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/UMsArchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(AU - set after CoG) Jonathan Morgenstern and Clary Fairchild would always wear the label of 'Valentine's daughter/son'. But Clary had the privilege of having been the daughter of someone else, too. <br/>Clary also had angel blood in her veins, not demon. The angel blood had given Clary surprising talent with runes. But Jonathan was sure he had been cheated with his demon blood, as he felt it had taken from him more than it had given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All I need of Hell pt.1

One strike. Just one strike would do. A 9 year old so small and frail wouldn’t even realise what happened to him before it was all over.

                                                 ***

    He walked inside his new room trying not to think of the looks his mother had given him up until the point they parted ways, he, to the Institute, she, with her family, with Clarissa, his sister, and Lucian Greymark, her werewolf boyfriend.

_Werewolf boyfriend._

He adjusted the grimace of his mouth back to a straight line as soon as he realised it had formed. He couldn’t think like that. He wasn’t supposed to think like that. Not if he took the choices that he did. Choices he and to stick with now and adjust to.

Besides, Lucian Greymark had been a Shadowhunter, years ago. Father had told him about the day Lucian had been bitten. That it had been an accident. That neither Lucian or him had wished for it to happen - though Johnathan started to doubt the later – and that once it had been done, there was no way of reversing it, no way of accepting it. Of accepting Lucian back. His mother, apparently, had. And Clarissa looked and acted as Jocelyn’s daughter through and through.

But Jonathan had had a completely different upbringing. Something not for him to forget. Or anyone else who had seen him.

  His mother had looked at him, until the very last moment, with anxiety, as if one moment or another some sharp clawed demon could tear off his skin and come to the surface. But there had also been something he could not clearly identify. A sort of mix of worry and longing. Wonder clouded by uncertainty. No one has ever looked at him that way. And in response he had only kept an impenetrable face, throughout it all, in the face of everyone. As father had taught him. Read everyone else’s thoughts. Don’t let them know yours.

   His sister’s way of watching him was easier to understand. She looked at him as if she’d seen him before, but could not place the memory, while being certain that they never met. That was the same way he felt about her. They were strangers nonetheless. Strangers linked by a past and with an unclear future.

   Then again, the whole of Jonathan’s future was unclear, anyways. He was to be watched closely now. Valentine’s son. A menace. A killer. But _watched closely_ meant mercy, and he was not sure how to take that. He had killed another Shadowhunter, Sebastian Verlac, which was punishable by death. And he had killed others. And he had also indirectly killed his own father, which ironically redeemed him just a little.

   They had talked his fate right before his eyes, in Idris, and he knew there’d be a lot of talking of the kind behind his back as well, from now on. An Institute had to take him on, for now, which Jonathan believed was not only mercy, but bordering to special treatment. If they hadn’t killed him, imprisonment would’ve been the most appropriate alternative choice. _Sed lex, dura lex_.

Of course, volunteers were not exactly crowding in to have him near themselves and everyone they held dear. And he and everyone else had thus been surprised when Maryse Lightwood had raised to her feet – Maryse’s family included, a family he had put in danger just a while before.

She also did as much as lead him to a room he would inhabit from then on – he was not sure about how much time that would be; he had no idea what would happen to him.

“Why?” His question wasn’t even nicely asked, though perhaps the situation would’ve asked for it.

She didn’t even look at him.

“For Jace’s life.”

He understood.

   The first thing he did once he was alone was take a shower. Lately, he was a showers maniac. The more he washed, the more the temporary hair dye came off, gradually. And he just wanted to be left all clean, just as he was. Just the minimal, original details of his being, the right place to start off. To start to understand whoever he was, could be, and could have been but wasn’t and won’t ever be. He started drying his hair meticulously with a towel and looked in the mirror. He recalled how alive and loudly speaking the eyes of his mother and sister were. Even though his were the same colour as theirs, they looked empty, unmoving, unfeeling, dreadfully like his father’s, aside from the change of colour. Green that could be shining was endarkened. One of the things he couldn’t really blame on his father, except perhaps from a genetic point of view.

   He walked out of the bathroom (not before meticulously folding the towel before putting it aside) and looked sort of unnerved at the pyjamas he had been given. They were Jace’s, Maryse had said. He lent them to Jonathan. Though Jace did not come to give them to Jonathan himself. There were also some other clothes and footwear. When he went to Idris, all he had had were Sebastian Verlac’s belongings, which clearly he did not want to keep anymore. Sure, he had his father’s interdimensional house to go back to. And all he had was there. He also had a lot money on his name now. The money, it would come to use. He didn’t want to get back there, though. He didn’t want to be on the run. Neither was he sure he wanted to integrate and be a happy Nephilim – and he most likely won’t be allowed to, but at this point it was easier to cross out the things he did not want, as a start.

He put on the pyjamas (Jace had good taste) and sat on the bed. He was tired, but he didn’t want to risk awakening the bad dreams that would come anyway. He started thinking of the people he had followed back to New York. Maryse and Robert Lightwood. His father had told him a few things about them. That Maryse was the real head of this family. That Robert had previously cheated on her and only their children saved their marriage.

Alexander Lightwood. He could not find him likable, but he supposed tying up someone’s younger brother was enough to make them be grumpy around you. He wouldn’t know. He tried to imagine finding out Alexander had done something to hurt Clarissa. But it was not the same, he knew. He hadn’t not grown up with Clarissa. He didn’t even know how to feel about Clarissa. Whether to feel anything. Nonetheless, the whole ‘feeling for anybody’ wasn’t his domain. He wasn’t even sure he had felt something for his father, although he had been the closest – and one of the only - person in Jonathan’s life for 18 years. Cold bloodedly arranging his death might say otherwise. But would he kill Clary or his mother? Would he _let them get_ killed?

He smiled. A borderline cruel, unamused smiles. It’s quite clear you are not the one to judge affection levels when you measure ‘caring’ in ‘kill or not’.

Yes, maybe Alexander had some good reasons not to like Jonathan tagging along. Though Alexander had other problems of his own, he remembered. Revealing his relationship with a man (and a Downworlder, too) in front of the whole Clave was nothing too easy on him or his family, he guessed. Whether Maryse and Robert abandoned Valentine’s beliefs, it probably didn’t mean they’d open their arms wide for a centuries old warlock like their son did. He tried to imagine what his father would have thought about such an abomination and then cursed, reminding himself that he shouldn’t consider anything his father would say or have ever said any longer. Not if he really wanted to leave it all behind.

But did he want to forget all of those beliefs? He _had to_ , they had told him inn Idris. He just needed to. But he wasn’t really sure about what he _wanted to_ keep and what to let go to.

“We have very comfortable beds here and there is really no reason for you to complain why you can’t sleep.”

Of course Jace would be the only person who could sneak up on him like that. Their father taught them well. Well, _his_ father. Jace had evaded that stigma. And even the father himself, since the age of 10.

  But Jace knew what it had meant for him. And he knew what it meant for everyone else around him. And that was as close as anyone knew Jonathan.

“Is this room service? I’d like a coke. Light - I don’t like it too sweet. And just a hint of lemon juice, please,” he arched his eyebrows at him, his head raised against arms crossed behind it.

“They call you Jace.” Jace didn’t reply. It was not a question. It was a casual affirmation that Jonathan didn’t even want an answer to and Jace understood that. And waited to hear the rest. “I guess it’s a good thing to have something new to get by, not overcrowd this place with _Johnathans_.”

 

Jace understood the subtext.

 

“You can choose a new name, too, you know. No one would condemn you. Valentine was old-fashioned and boring in choosing them for us. Quite stubborn and limited, too. To like ‘Jonathan Christopher’ so much as to not at least allow a distinctive variation. ‘Christian’ for one of us, perhaps? ‘Joshua’ instead of ‘Jonathan’?” Jace ventured.

 

“If he had named me ‘Joshua Christian’, I wouldn’t even have needed any additional reasoning to kill him,” the morbid joke was even before he had the chance to digest it.  

 

Silence followed that remark, and Jace seemed in deep thought, as if he was debating something. Perhaps jokes about patricide is as far as empathy goes even if - or especially when – you’ve both been raised by said killed father.

 

“Thank you, Jace said, and Jonathan furrowed his brows at the unexpected remark.

“-for saving Clary. And for saving me. Clary is your sister. But you owed me nothing.”

 

“I just stood there and let him kill you – I owed you for that.”

 

Silence again. It wasn’t quite a comfortable, but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. And then Jace left.

 

For some reason, Jonathan found it much easier to fall asleep this time.


	2. All I need of Hell pt. 2

The day Jonathan had been born, Jocelyn learnt what being terrified truly meant. Up until that moment, she had had moments of being scared, of being broken, of being hopeless. Even after Luke’s supposed death, she still kept the courage that she was capable of making it out of that mess, and save Valentine, too. Save her family.

But the first moment she saw her son, ice enveloped her and, for the briefest moment, she couldn’t breathe. She realized later, that was what real terror felt like. A moment in time when you think you’re facing the end. That there’s no return and no amendment that could save you from the aftermath. The moment she looked down at the child she had given birth to and saw the emptiness in him. His eyes were dark pools of nothingness and he did not cry, or laugh, and could barely whimper and she knew the latter was not a matter of lack of strength – that much she could feel inside of him. 

No one who had had the chance to see Jonathan as she had could’ve mistaken him for Jace. There was fire in this boy’s eyes, fire that could be dangerous, but fire nonetheless, burning vividly and warmly. Her son’s had been dark and cold, the chimney of a long abandoned house - no one present to make a fire in it and even less willing to. 

She had wanted to care for him, to try and love him, but the problem with that was there seemed to be no boy inside of that body to love. For the whole time that she had been with him, there was no sign that there was an individual well-defined person in her baby. No traces or show of a personality, of individual traits. She couldn’t even feel warmth in his body anytime she held him in her arms. She had wanted to get to know him and love him as he was, but she had no idea who he was, if he was anyone. 

After his death, the idea that she had had a living small creature that she had fed and allowed to sleep next to her seemed like a dream. She knew she had a child to mourn, but she could not place the memory of a child to that impression. Everything that was real was carrying him, caressing her belly and dreaming of bright eyes and small smiles and that’s what she kept in her memory, the child that she could’ve had. And that’s how she mourned him.

When they have told her Jonathan was alive, she steeled herself, but something inside of her broke. She had kept in mind the loving idea of a lost child for that long, like a mother whose son had been stolen from her even before she had had the time to lay her eyes on him. And now she was afraid. Afraid that she would see the same shell of a person again and that image would shatter to pieces. That she would hate the sight of him. Because in that shell her child was supposed to have lived, but he was taken away that chance.

She hugged Clary tighter than she ever had, when they met again, after Valentine’s death. He was not there. And none of them were quite sure about how to open the subject of Clary’s brother. But Jocelyn knew it had to be her. She had kept him a secret for that long.

“Where is he?” was her vague choice of wording, but Clary understood.

“They are interrogating him,” she said, nodding lightly towards the massive doors behind her. “No one is allowed in right now. They would interrogate me next. And then Jace,” Clary explained weakly.

Jocelyn nodded. She wanted to know what had happened that day between the three of them and Valentine, but she knew that behind those doors there were already people ready to harass Clary with questions. But there was something she had to ask, knowledge she couldn’t go on without having. “How is he?”

Clary hesitated. And that was enough to make Jocelyn worry. “He saved us,” she said simply. “He almost didn’t,” she added, though, cautiously, but repeated nonetheless, “But he saved us.”

Jocelyn just nodded in return. And they waited.

The doors opened wide, and her heart stopped. They only made eye contact for a couple of seconds, before they both broke it at the same time and he went on, while she remained to wave Clary in. 

The first second of it, she felt that same terror, the terror she had felt the first time she saw him, as she discovered his empty, dark eyes. The second one, she observed that, despite being clouded, his eyes now were the same green as Clary’s, and in that very moment, her heart broke for an instant and a sort of hopeful longing overcame her. 

But soon he was gone, and she was left empty and confused. And all she could see was his departing back, tall and proud like her ex-husband’s.

He was not cuffed or restrained in any way, but a Shadowhunter walked on each on his sides, directing him to wherever he had been sent to go. She wondered if she was going to be imprisoned. She wondered if he had been condemned to death. She wondered if that was the first and last glimpse she would ever take of her son, as the person he really was. 

This glimpse had only left her wondering. And she wondered if she did want the chance to know the truth about him or live with this torturing but nurturing split possibility. 

_______________________________________________________________________

His mother wanted to see him. Something strange enough for him to hear, especially since it was only early in the morning on his first day after arriving at the Institute. He didn’t expect her to want to see him so soon. In all honesty, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had never expressed the desire to see him. They were strangers. She had her own family. And he and his father had been a completely separated one, if the term ‘family’ could be applied to the sort of relationship the two of them had had. Jocelyn was his mother just as much as Valentine was Clarissa’s father. And, no matter the sort of person Jocelyn turned out to be, he was already at peace with the fact that he had ended up with the bad end of the bargain. 

He had slipped out of his room early in the morning. His father had accustomed him with a sort of military schedule. Lying lazily in bed for a few more hours if you had nothing to do was out of the question. One had to find himself a preoccupation. But Jonathan didn’t have many preoccupations altogether. He decided to head towards the library.

One of his preoccupations have been to sneak around when his father was gone (and he was gone for weeks at a time, sometimes) and read some of the novels from his shelves, in between intensive training sessions, of course. Valentine had prohibited him to read that sort of things. He had said these sort of activities only made one soft. Jonathan had never felt any much softer due to that, and definitely he hadn’t shown any softness. 

A few years ago, he had found out about ‘the other boy’ and he’s been told ‘he had proven to be too soft to take part in their cause’. Time ago, when he’d met Jace, he saw his clear back and wished he had been a soft child, if soft children didn’t get whips on their back.

His mother walked in and he immediately admired her air of strength. His father had thought him to read people well. He was perfectly aware when all people had was a temporary façade of strength especially worn for a situation or another, but it wasn’t Jocelyn’s case. At times, he had thought it ridiculous that father wouldn’t get over her. But now he could see why.

__________________________________________________________________________________

When she went in, Jonathan barely acknowledged her presence. All he did was look up at her and nod when she called his name, but otherwise he was completely untroubled and unmoved by the fact that his mother stood before him. She was ready to think he’d just casually go back to reading his book, but he did as much as leave it open on his lap. It was Dostoievsky’s 'Karamazov Brothers'. A story where a father is killed by one of his sons.

She kept her courage and went in, taking a seat opposite from him. He looked a lot like Valentine. Tall and slender. A figure elegant and apparently relaxed, visibly stiff only if you knew better. Pale skin and hair. A well chiseled jaw line. But his face wasn’t Valentine’s high bony structure. It was fuller. And his eyes were bigger. And green - but glassy.

“First read?” she glanced at the book.

“Second. I thought it was… appropriate.” Both his voice and his gaze were equally calculated. Full of meaning and empty.

“You find people you know in the characters?” she asked, keeping an equal gaze on him.

“It is rather fascinating,” he said, leaning back and crossing his legs, “how he encompasses the three types in the three brothers. And how relatable they can be. Let’s think of Valentine’s children. We have Dimitri, the beast with a heart, wild and reckless, but caring, like Jace. There’s Alexei, the open kind-hearted one who tries to do right by others – which sounds a lot like Clary.”

“Then are you Ivan, the displaced cynic, the conflicted skeptic?”

“Maybe I am the outcast. Smerdyakov, the monster.” There was no emotion in saying it. Jonathan called himself a 'monster' as a possible little fact. Small talk in a normal conversation of introduction.

“You are not a monster, Jonathan.” Jocelyn made her response in the same way. 

“He said I was.” His expression did not change as he said it, and no gesture gave away that he might have felt anything, any hurt in the fact that that was how his father had openly acknowledged him.

“Valentine saw monsters in anyone but himself,” was the explanation she gave him. She was not ready to tell him his father had been wrong. She did not know it yet herself. But she hoped. Her gaze was penetrating but he did not shy away from it. But she still couldn't see further. What was her son?

“He said you thought I were one, too,” he added. And this time, she could hear, if not an accusation, then a challenge. A challenge to lie to him and say he wasn't when he would undoubtedly see it. He would. No matter how well she would lie. She could see it clearly that he would.

And so she decided to be truthful. “I didn’t. I had no idea what you were. I still don’t." She thought she perceived a slight nod, a sign that she had passed a test, whatever that test had been. Whatever it meant to him, he accepted her answer. "But as far as our narrative goes, you are not Smerdyakov. You didn’t kill your father. You might be Ivan. He knew Fyodor would be killed, but he let it happen. And Fyodor deserved it.”

“Do you think he deserved to die?”

“I only think he had to be stopped. And I know Valentine could not be stopped in his convictions by anything else.” 

This time, Johnathan nodded perceptibly, breaking the eye contact to exchange it for a sideways vacant stare, like he was thinking something through. Jocelyn could tell, he had had all questions he had wanted answered. She figured, this was all they could offer each other for now. He, the uncertainty inn him being a monster. She, the uncertainty in her believing he was one. It was not much. But it was something. She sat up.

"I will leave you to finish your book."

He looked up at her, as if he hadn't ever looked away. "Will we meet again?"

Jocelyn wished she could say there had been something hopeful in the question, but his voice remained empty of any emotion. "I hope so." She wondered if she was supposed to do anything before going out. Hugging him didn't seem to be appropriate. It sounded like a foreign concept even to her. So she just stretched out her hand. He surveyed it for a moment, one look at the hand, one look at her open face, then took it, a short touch, almost gentle, before it was over.

She left, still not knowing what to think of their future, but perhaps that was a good thing.


End file.
